Fiction?

[gnat]

Being a writer of fiction, I always have to ask this question: who are your favorite fiction writers? Favorite genres?

 

I have way too many to list but horror is a guilty pleasure of mine, a love left over from my teenage years. I also read a lot of surreal, absurd, bizarre fiction, which is pretty much what I write.

 

So, how about you guys? Any fiction lovers out there?

[9nines]

I either read new unique writers (David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas and other books - is promising) or classic writers.

[CrispyQ]

I'm a sci fi junkie. I can deal with some fantasy but some of it is a bit over the top. CS Friedman's Coldfire triology was great & "The Madness Season" is one of the best group mind books I've ever read. Although now that I think of it, "Ender's Game " & "Speaker for the Dead" were also good group mind stories, Speaker having the additional attraction of the AI, Jane, in it. Gibson's Sprawl series is classic. And I cannot forget to give tribute to my first sci fi love, Isaac Asimov.

 

As for horror, "It" was the only horror book to really scare me. To this day I will not walk close to a sewer grate. Pennywise has to be one of the all time great horror characters.

[gnat]

I like a good sci-fi book every once in a while. Heinlein is probably my favorite. I especially love those stories from the 40's and 50's, when even going to the moon was considered science fiction. Ray Bradbury is another good one from that era, as is early Vonnegut.

 

And, yep, Pennywise is definitely one of the most evil/creepy characters ever put to paper. Although, if you've ever read The Stand, Randall Flagg is way up there too!

[CrispyQ]

Ahhhhhh . . . Randall Flagg. The Walkin' Man. The Crow.

 

~snort . . . I LOVED "The Stand"!! I started it one night, read till 3am or so & called in sick the next two days to finish it. (yeah, I'm a slow reader, but I asorb it.)

 

And Heinlein . . . "Stranger In a Strange Land" was my first Heinlein. His "Cat" book was one I remember.

 

As for Vonnegut, words cannot express . . .

 

Many of the classic sci fi authors I read 20 - 25 years ago. I'm always interested in other people's sci fi reading suggestions.

 

On some forum (was it this one?????) there was a discussion about "Contact" the book vs. "Contact" the movie. Have you seen & read "Contact"?

[gnat]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Contact!!!! The movie anyway. I have the book but never did read it. I know a lot of people didn't like it because they wanted it to be more like Alien or whatever, but I love it just the way it is.

 

Another movie most people hated for the same reason was Signs. Another favorite of mine.

 

And anyone that can read The Stand in 3 days I have to tip my hat to. That is one FAT book! Amazing though!!

 

Stranger in a Strange Land. Classic! I totally grok where you're coming from!!

[finbarrio]

I loved Contact and really loved Signs. The scene where they first show an alien - walking past the alley in Brazil - well I think I screamed louder than the kids at the birthday party. Joaquim Phoenix is a tremendous actor (and a great friend of the animals, I might add).

 

I really like Tim Winton, the Australian writer. I loved The Riders - it had a couple holes, but I'm a sucker for cruising-all-over-Europe books for some reason [(to go along with my obsession with medical-related books like Gina Kolata's incredible Flu, and Killers Within by Plotkin and Schnayerson (had to look the authors up )].

 

I really like the staple spiritual jobs like The Alchemist, Siddhartha, Till We Have Faces.

[gnat]

Strangely, I've never read The Alchemist, but I guess I should since I keep hearing great things about it.

 

And I LOVE Siddhartha! One of my all-time favorite lines from any book is in that one: "I am not going anywhere, I am only on the way." So perfect...and sums up so nicely how I try to live my life.

 

What about Daniel Quinn's Ishmael? Great book for anyone concerned with doing their part to save the planet. Really woke me up to a lot of things.

[Over40]

Ian Fleming, Bond gets to do what the rest of us can't.

 

Someone mentioned "Siddartha" excellent choice.

 

Henry Miller, I dig his stuff also.

 

O40 (Someday, as I stated on another site I'll be O50).

 

Jon

[endcruelty]

i like hg wells (he was a veggie)

i like robert ludlum 2... bourne series is craaaaaaazy cant wait for ultimatum to come out

[Jay]

Being a writer of fiction, I always have to ask this question: who are your favorite fiction writers? Favorite genres?

Jack Vance. He's usually thrown into the sci-fi genre but many feel he shouldn't be within such a genre as his work is true "literature" and has been unfairly dismissed as a result of being labeled "sci-fi". Vance, himself, preferred the term "anthropoligical fiction"... I think. A number of people online were so ed by how underappreciated his work is that they put together a non-profit group to have his complete works made into one set. (60 some books.) It was a very large undertaking called the VIE. I've certainly never seen the likes of that with respect to any other writer.

 

I have way too many to list but horror is a guilty pleasure of mine, a love left over from my teenage years. I also read a lot of surreal, absurd, bizarre fiction, which is pretty much what I write.

Well, come on. throw some stuff out there.

 

I used to really want to be a writer but now it occurs to me that 99%+ of the stuff I read, if it had been me writing it, I wouldn't have bothered. Life is short and people's time is wasted on crap and I don't want to churn out a bunch of crap. So I'm a perfectionist with many half (or less) completed works.

 

But I like Vance, Huxley, Capek, Lagerkvist, Robin Hobb, China Mieville, to name a very, very few. Sometimes I think their work was worthwhile.

[Odidnetne]

I've heard Flatland was a really good book, and I want to read it, though I'm not sure if it's fiction...anymore.

 

The book deals with a square living in a 2d world and a being from a 3d universe comes, and is able to make moves that the 2d square can't even begin to comprehend, which makes you wonder about 4,5, & 7d universes, and how we may not be able to comprehend movements that they can do.

[gnat]

Well, since I was last here, I read The Alchemist. AMAZING book. I might go so far as to call it life-changing. I really loved it and can now safely say it is one of my favorites.

[Guest]

Anything from Jules Verne is great...especially in movie form(other than the last around the world in 80 days with Jackie Chan)

[VeganGirl2006]

Call me a kid, but I love the Harry Potter series.

[Guest]

I too like the Potter series but much more for the movies...I don't really wanna spend that much time reading about my brother when I can just watch his movies...plus he's a bit of a jerk and gets more royalties from the book than from DVDs and I don't wanna make him any richer than he already is.